‘I feel like I’m losing her’: the families torn apart by older relatives going far right It starts with a ‘back in my day’ nostalgic meme – then suddenly your elders are sharing AI-generated ‘boomerslop’ and repeating conspiracy theories …

Facebook AI nostalgia-slop seems to be doing a number on the elderly. Really interesting read

Oh if I am with the fam thats a whole different ball game plus road crossing in northern Sweden has completely blown how I approach traffic when back in London!!!

Where does leisurely opportunism sit here? Perhaps this is a question of how willing to run one is? And if traffic density? No rush but if the opportunity arises to cross without changing my pace then I am taking it.

Meddling in elections? Or safeguarding democracy?

The EU is pretty clear on what “European bureaucrats” do. And do not do.

#elections #hungary

The nostalgic (de)legitimation of sportswashing: Social... On 7 October 2021, a consortium led by the Saudi Public Investment Fund completed a takeover of Newcastle United Football Club. The takeover was...

🚨New publication alert🚨

With @dfarrellbanks.bsky.social

The nostalgic (de)legitimation of sportswashing: Social media and legacy media reactions to the Saudi Arabian state takeover of Newcastle United. Nordic Journal of Media Studies.

Available OA here:

reference-global.com/article/10.2...

Great to see this article published after a really fun and interesting collaboration with @dfarrellbanks.bsky.social !

The. Rise. Of. Cognitive. Surrender.

Study finds that people who use GenAI chatbots rely on them 80% of the time, and develop almost no capacity to recognize when a chatbot is feeding them faulty information.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Memory chip stocks shed $100bn as AI-driven shortage trade unwinds New research suggests AI data centres will need much less memory than investors had bargained for

This is interesting, not least because it shows the ridiculous sensitivity of over-valued tech stocks giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

‘Trump is aiming for dictatorship’. That’s the verdict of the world’s most credible democracy watchdog | Martin Gelin Sweden’s V-Dem Institute warns that the US is no longer a liberal democracy. And autocracy is creeping across Europe too, says writer Martin Gelin

“For Orbán in Hungary, it took about four years, …for Erdoğan in Turkey and Modi in India, it took about 10 years to accomplish the suppression of democratic institutions that Trump has achieved in only one year”

Based on new @vdeminstitute.bsky.social data

www.theguardian.com/world/commen...

'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back Kenyan workers are still the underpaid labor behind AI training, moderation, and sex chatbots. The Data Labelers Association is fighting back.

“AI can never be AI without humans. It is not artificial intelligence. It’s African intelligence,” says Michael Geoffrey Asia, a former data labeler in Kenya who is now secretary general of the Data Labelers Association. "We train ChatGPT and it’s killing us slowly.” www.404media.co/ai-is-africa...

I have eight browser tabs about Anthropic and Dario Amodei open right now.

Madness status: incoming.

This is the kind of use of Automated FRT and Ai I had in mind when writing this:

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

It was great working with Mykola Makhortykh, Silvana Mandolessi, Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden, @riksmit.bsky.social and qi wang.

Thanks also to the collection’s editors (@andrewhoskins.bsky.social, Amanda Lagerkvist and Anthony Downey) and the three anonymous reviewers.

🚨 New publication alert! 🚨

I’m proud of this interdisciplinary, co-authored piece on how memory studies might handle the AI hype.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

It has just been added, open access, to Memory, Mind and Media’s special collection on AI and Memory.

The sociological imagination is not just about observing society; it’s about understanding how people challenge systems of power and create change.

In the magazine’s June issue, @carinrunciman.bsky.social‬ and fellow scholars reflect on what it means to think sociologically.

buff.ly/R9DWhvA

So we did a thing… 🧵

You’ve heard about the erasing of LGBTQ history on National Park Service websites. Egregious changes made to the Stonewall National Monument site (erasing all instances of trans and queer) & the disappearance of resources like the monumental “LGBTQ America” theme study.

My post was a subtle reference to the Sweden Democrats ;)

What is it with blue flowers

One of the smartest sociologists of this generation. @tressiemcphd.bsky.social delivers knowledge.

The words “ITS A COUP” in red bold letters atop the front page of New York Times featuring a photo of Elon Musk.

“So yes, we've experienced a coup, not the old fashioned kind, no tanks or mobs, but an undemocratic and hostile takeover of government. It is cruel, it is petty. It can be brutal. It is at once chaotic and surgical…The question is, will the rule of law hold?”

Looking forward to participating in this tomorrow!

NIUS and others on the far right are trying to roll back the expansion of German memory culture of Nazi victim groups over the past thirty years as it has expanded beyond the Holocaust of European Jews to include recognition of Roma, disabled, homosexual, trans and Afro-German victims.

Someone has adapted East German singer Ernst Busch's song Ami - go Home! for the present day conflict between the Trump administration and Canada.

How AI imagery could be used to develop fake archaeology Even before the use of AI, it was widely accepted within archaeology that visualisations of the past are highly fraught and should be treated with caution.

Generative #AI is already having an impact on how we perceive #archaeology🏺.

In her @us.theconversation.com essay @clmorgan.bsky.social urges for critical yet constructive engagement with digital technologies in our investigation of the past.

theconversation.com/how-ai-image...

I found no sign of it on the other place.

Apple is pulling its AI-generated notifications for news after generating fake headlines | CNN Business Apple is temporarily pulling its newly introduced artificial intelligence feature that summarizes news notifications after it repeatedly sent users error-filled headlines, sparking backlash from a new...

Whoever could have imagined the AI headline generator would make shit up

amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/01/...

A person walks in front of a burning church in Pasadena, California, on Jan. 8, 2025. Huge fountains of flame are shooting out of the windows AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Firefighters stand silhouetted in front of a massive fire engulfing several homes

Throwing tomato soup on a painting seems like an under-reaction, to be honest

Since Die Hard is a Christmas film, a brief thread on my own head canon of how the Gruber brothers disparate bios are tied up in postwar German history.

Samuel Merrill on LinkedIn: Den artificiella bibliotekarien: En etnografisk studie om hur ChatGPT kan… A lot happened in 2024 even with a couple of months out on parental leave. Just before I turn on my out-of-office and go on leave until the start of 2025 I…

My 2024 in review on LinkedIn:

eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

Have a great break everyone! See you in 2025